


living in a nightmare

by presidentbees



Series: Arcane Distillery [5]
Category: Arcane Distillery, Original Work
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, Choking, Cults, Demonic Possession, Drabble Collection, Eldritch, Nightmares, OCD, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Possession, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:16:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15693540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/presidentbees/pseuds/presidentbees
Summary: He was dreaming again.CK watched as the white hands drifted in through the windows, taking away pieces of Dria’s skin as she continued to talk to him. Already, she had been reduced down to bones in several places, and the hands has started to pick away portions of her face.CK nodded along to whatever Dria was saying, pretending to read the gibberish newspaper in his hands. He knew the rules of this nightmare. As long as he pretended like the hands weren’t there, he would be safe. He just had to wait for the nightmare to end.





	living in a nightmare

_[preface: this takes place after an event where Cicatrix/CK is contacted by old members of the cult that he was stolen by as a child. They convince him to meet up, and then abduct him to go back to the compound where CK grew up. It's in ruins due to a fire, but the cultists are convinced that CK can use it to jog the memories that he lost. This story takes place after CK is rescued and is returning home]_

"Dria! I'm here!"

Jerking her head up, Dria looked toward the voice and saw the familiar face of her best friend — he looked tired, and there was an ugly bruise blooming under his right eye, but he was whole. Tears were already running down CK face as Dria raced across the airport, throwing herself into his open arms.

"Don't ever do that again. Don't fucking— don't ever do that again." Dria had her face smashed into CK's chest as he patted her back. "I hate you so much. I'm so mad right now. Don't think that this is over. You're never going to hear the end of this from me. Fuck you. I’m so glad you're safe."

CK cried silently, letting himself be crushed in Dria's embrace. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry—"

"Don't say that you're sorry." Dria commanded. "You have nothing to be sorry for. None of this is your fault."

Sniffling, CK nodded and rested his head on top of Dria's as she continued to hold him. She held onto him like she had been drowning for weeks, and he was the first life preserver that had been thrown her way. In a way, that's exactly what he was.

"Fuck, I missed you." Dria finally released him, giving him a final pat on the back. "Where are your bags? I'll help you carry them back to the car."

CK wiped his eyes and silently gestured to the backpack he was carrying.

"That's all you have?"

"It's all they would let me bring." CK's voice was hoarse from crying. "Just one bag."

Dria felt her face crumple, but she didn't cry. Instead, she just took CK's hand in hers and held it close. "Alright. That's fine. We can get you some new clothes on the way home."

 

* * *

 

CK was resting on his side, his head on Dria's lap as she played with his hair. He had tightly swaddled himself in the sheets that Dria had brought out for him, and he was wearing Bonnie's sleep mask. For the first time in weeks, he felt safe.

"—and so they took us back there, back up to the house— where I grew up," CK said, recounting his trip. "And it was so cold. They didn't have electricity there because there weren't any generators anymore, and so everything was freezing. All of the outside windows had been smashed, and there was snow inside of the rooms. It was always so cold. Even in the rooms underground which didn’t have windows. It was— always freezing.

He— they— we— tried to make it as comfortable as we could. We had sleeping bags and we built a fire, but it was always so cold. I was never warm. It was so cold."

CK's voice cracked as he started to cry again, and Dria gently rubbed his back with one hand. He took a second to catch his breath, and then continued. 

“I was supposed to remember everything, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I tried to remember everything but it was like I was in a dream— or I had been there in a dream. It seemed familiar, but none of it seemed real.” 

As CK talked, he could see himself walking through the ruins of his old ~~childhood home~~ prison in the mountains. He ran one gloved hand over the snow covered countertops in the kitchen, and looked out of the broken window to see the backyard with the old oak tree. 

Dead leaves still stubbornly clung to the tree’s branches, even as the heavy, January snow continued to fall around it — like the old tree was trying to defy nature and pretend there was still life in it. 

"Don't touch there." CK flinched as Dria's fingers accidentally brushed one of the scars near his hairline, and she quickly moved her hand away.

"My bad," she whispered, going back to gently massaging CK's upper scalp. "What happened next?"

“I was looking out at the oak tree and I remember thinking about everybody— all the others. The kids like me— the ones who were me.” 

“Fifty-one children named Cicatrix.” Dria said, and CK hummed in acknowledgement. 

_Fifty-One Children Named Cicatrix_ was a novel that had been published several years ago. A reporter wrote about the cult of Kastikós and the children that had been. . . lost there. She had interviewed CK, and the book had made CK into a minor celebrity, but it also brought back painful memories whenever he thought about it.

CK could still remember some of the other kids. There was the Cicatrix with the short hair but long bangs, and the Cicatrix with the deep cut across its left hand. And there was the Cicatrix with the cleft lip, and the one with the long red hair, and the one who always had a squint, and the one with the mole on its cheek, and the one with the lazy eye. 

But no matter how hard CK tried to remember, he never could picture if the others were boys or girls. In his memories, each one of them had his exact face. Each child with rotating attributes that slightly set them apart from himself — the real Cicatrix. 

Fifty other children all named “Cicatrix”. Fifty other children all called “it”. 

CK could vaguely remember what their voices sounded like. They had grown up with each other, and they had all become well acquainted with each others screams as they were all held in that dark place. The screams which eventually dwindled down to just CK’s as hands would continually come into his room to grab at his arms and inflict new wounds. 

Dria’s blunt nails pushed into his temples, drawing CK back out of his thoughts. “You found the tree and started to think of the others, and then what?” 

“There’s nothing— nothing after that. I don’t remember anything else.” CK lied, squirming away from Dria’s touch. “I’m done.”

 

* * *

 

"CK. Breathe! CK!"

Bonnie came running into the kitchen at the sound of Dria yelling and saw CK standing at the sink, his hands still dripping soap and water and he stared wide eyed at the knife in his hands.

Dria was beside him, one hand on his wrist while the other grabbed at his chin, trying to force CK to meet her eyes. “Put the knife down," she commanded. "Look at me. CK. Breathe. Breathe."

Bonnie could see CK's hand start to shake as he battled with himself — the knife was slowly beginning to inch toward his right arm, despite Dria’s firm grip. He had an intensity in his eyes that Bonnie hadn’t ever seen from him before. 

CK mumbled something — “. . . . get it. . . out.” 

“What?” Dria had moved away from trying to get CK to look at her and was now focusing on trying to pry his fingers off of the knife handle. 

“I . . . have to. . . get it out. . .” CK whispered breathlessly. 

His face was starting to go pale, and Bonnie wondered how long it had been. A minute? A minute thirty? How long could people typically hold their breath for? Was he going to pass out with a knife in his hands?

The sound of the room faded out from Bonnie as he focused on CK. He could still see Dria’s lips moving as she yelled for CK to let go of the knife, but there wasn’t any sound. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as he zoned in on knife in CK’s hands. 

Even with Dria’s full weight pushing against him, CK had managed to move his arm enough that the tip of the blade was pressing into the soft skin between his wrist and his palm. For a second, the skin was held taut. Bonnie could hear his heartbeat in his ears, and something inside of his gut coiled in anticipation. 

Then there was an almost audible “pop” and the knife tip sank into the skin of CK’s wrist. 

Something wrenched inside of Bonnie’s gut, and there was a snap as something broke off inside of him. It shivered, then began painfully shoving past his organs to rush up his throat and push out of his mouth and—

 _“καταναγκασμός,”_ Bonnie whispered, and the silence broke.

CK exhaled sharply, dropping the knife back into the sink with a splash. His hands were trembling violently, and blood was slowly pooling from of the cut he had made. Beads of blood ran down the length of his hand, falling off of his pinky finger to mix in with the dirty water.

“I’m okay.” CK’s voice quavered. “Dria, I’m fine.You’re— you’re hurting me.” 

Dria slowly released her grip on CK’s arm, not assured that he wasn’t going to plunge his hand back into the soapy water to stab his palm.

 

* * *

 

Their hands were. _Freezing._

CK knew he was having a nightmare, but he instinctively held his breath as two freezing hands wrapped around his throat. 

He was sitting next to Dria, who had passed out with her head on CK’s shoulder. She smelled like old cigarettes and his strawberry shampoo, and CK tried to focus on that as the hands on his throat tightened their grip. 

He refused to open his eyes and see them. 

“My name is CK. I’m 22. I live on 24th street. The current president is—” 

The figure rolled their thumbs to the side of CK’s airways. CK could feel his body automatically flinch away as the fingers brushed over his scars. 

His head was starting to get fuzzy. Logically, CK knew that it was all in his head. He was actually just holding his breath. As soon as he ran out of air, he would reflexively open his mouth and take a breath, and the nightmare would end. 

It wasn’t real. 

“—I like going to cat cafes.” CK continued with his internal mantra to keep himself calm. “I don’t like the bus, so every day, I go to the gym and then walk to the cat cafe downtown on 3rd street and Clement. I pass by a coffee shop on the way there. They always—” 

CK could feel his chest going tight as he began to run out of air. Blood was pounding in his ears, and he struggled to stay calm. 

“—and they always know my name. They always have yellow— yellow tulips there— because it’s called the Dutch Cafe and— and— and—” 

CK’s brain blanked out as he finally ran out of air. He opened his mouth, trying to take in a deep breath and— 

He didn’t wake up.

 

* * *

 

He was dreaming again. 

CK watched as the white hands drifted in through the windows, taking away pieces of Dria’s skin as she continued to talk to him. Already, she had been reduced down to bones in several places, and the hands has started to pick away portions of her face. 

CK nodded along to whatever Dria was saying, pretending to read the gibberish newspaper in his hands. He knew the rules of this nightmare. As long as he pretended like the hands weren’t there, he would be safe. He just had to wait for the nightmare to end. 

“CK, look at me,” Dria reached out to put one skeletal hand on the paper that CK was reading, pulling it down. “What’s wrong?” 

Looking up at her, CK watched as one of the hands deftly slid its fingers around Dria’s exposed eye, gently tugging on it until it had loosened it from the optic nerve. Another hand quickly replaced it, unspooling Dria’s optic nerve and winding it between its fingers. 

There wasn’t a single drop of blood. 

“I’m—” CK blanked, trying not to stare at Dria’s new, empty eye socket. “I’ve got a migraine. I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to concentrate.” 

Dria made a sympathetic noise. “I’m sorry, bud. Have you tried drinking less caffeine?”

A mixture of anger and anxiety began to simmer in his chest — the real Dria would have chastised him for saying sorry, and she never used the word “bud” with anybody. It was all wrong. This was _a cheap imitation_ of Dria. Even down to what she looked like. The real Dria would never—

“Are you wearing lipstick?” CK asked suddenly. 

“Huh? You noticed?” Dria covered her mouth modestly. “It’s something new that I wanted to try.” 

CK wanted to run. He felt his heart rate speed up, and he resisted the urge to get up from his chair and make a break for the bathroom. It was one thing for him to be tortured like this and watch people be picked apart in front of him, but it was another thing entirely to be taunted with this— this mockery of his best friend. 

Anxiously, CK flicked his eyes over to his left and saw that by thinking of running, he had (metaphorically) shot himself in the leg. The path to the bathroom had liquified and was now bubbling slowly — like honey that had been put on the stove to boil. There was no way for him to get out of this now.

Dria was still looking at him with concern — or CK assumed that she was looking at him. Her face was still pointed in his general direction, but her other eye had been removed, and the hands were now at work with loosening the skin around her face to peel off in a single sheet. 

“I think the lipstick looks ugly.” 

“What? Really?” 

CK averted his eyes, looking away from the fake Dria. “It doesn’t look like you. I know you, and you wouldn’t ever wear lipstick. That’s— that’s not what you like.” 

Dria was silent for a second, and CK was afraid to look back at her in case the hands had taken her throat. “Thanks, CK. I’ll keep that in mind for the future.” 

She sounded calm, but her voice sent a shiver through CK’s spine. That wasn’t Dria thanking him. _It _wasn’t her. __It_ knew how to improve for next time.___

**Author's Note:**

> CK is such a gem and I love him to death. You can read more about him in the other sections of Arcane Distillery. I don't have an excuse for most of this since I'm working on getting these characters figured out.
> 
> You can go read more about him on his [toyhou.se](https://toyhou.se/1674553.ck) page.


End file.
